The People in the Room

When I was offered my current job, two and a half years ago, I was told the challenges that awaited me. I was there, on the branch campus of a major state university, to essentially save a dwindling graduate program.

To their credit, the administration graciously gave me the freedom and creativity to drive the direction of the program on the branch campus. This meant that very important people within the university system were interested to know what my strategy was going to be. What was my overall plan for recruitment? What specific sections of the professional market would I try to corner? Did I need a budget for billboard ads and click bait?

The truth was, I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a strategic vision or a recruitment strategy coming into the job. All I had was a goal: grow and strengthen the program. And given how small the program had become, and how new and green I was, this was a big goal. So I decided to start with a simple idea, a personal strategy I have long tried to follow: take care of the people in the room.

The first day on the job, I came into a room with six students in it. They were all I had. So I set out to give them everything I could. I listened to their concerns, their wants, their desires in a program, and the classes they were most interested in taking. I scheduled those classes, created assignments around their interests, and booked guest speakers to satisfy their curiosity in certain areas. I built every inch of that program around six people in a room.

Those six students graduated a year later. They are among the most ambitious and brilliant people I’ve ever met. Some went on to take important, change-making jobs in the community. Others were promoted within their fields. One went as far as Africa to work with an NGO. But every single one of them did another very valuable thing: they talked about their experience in the room.

Before long, others were applying. And I had a few more people in the room. On and on it went until two years later and now the room is overflowing.

I find that big goals cause people great anxiety. I push my students to always live with a bit of that anxiety because if they aren’t feeling it, they aren’t dreaming big enough. But those big goals often paralyze people before they even get the chance to make progress toward them.

Many students come into class on the first day worried about their final grade. Many prospective students worry about what they will do with the degree after they graduate, before they’ve even decided to apply.

The deal is, everyone has a goal. A big goal. Sometimes many, many big goals.

But they are a bit fuzzy on the plan.

So here’s the plan: Start with the people in the room.

Some of my most productive days end in me getting nothing done. I have an open-door policy, which means students can, and do, frequently stop by. While it’s difficult to ever make much progress grading papers or returning emails, it puts the power on those who enter the room. Once they sit down in front of me, they become my focus.

Sure, that isn’t a terribly efficient way to run a day. It’s often slow work. It sometimes feels like I got nothing done. And I often wonder if I spent my time wisely. But the truth is, taking care of those in the room is the work. An hour with one student seems to make greater impact than spending that hour talking to 20 potential students at a recruiting event.

The room is where the most important work is done. I’ve sat in plenty of meetings with colleagues where the laptop divides us—remotely sent messages are the priority in the room. Or people are distracted by what’s just outside the room—the next meeting, a pile of paperwork, unread emails. Or they forget to really listen to the thoughts of those closest. Or worse, they don't get consensus, buy-in, or excitement, from those around the table before a plan is rolled outside the room.

In class, I have a reputation for being a Luddite. I don’t allow phones or laptops. Which is tough on the students because they want to work all the time. Write while in class. Get started on the next project. Start researching for next week’s assignment while the class is discussing this week’s assignment. And sometimes look at their house on Google Earth.

I get it. That’s how we are built to think.

That somehow activity is productivity, and that productivity is the only way to achieve our goal.

But when my students are without distraction, and are focused solely on the other classmates in the room, everyone learns more. They have a better experience. And they are way more prepared for next week’s assignment.

When I get home at night I often feel the pull of work. Emails from my students. Grading. Or I feel the pull of a social life I currently can’t quite sustain. Texts for a happy hour. Invitation to a dinner. But when I walk in and see my kids and my husband, that’s the room I have to focus on. One of my big goals is a happy family life with lasting relationships. So my five-year-old’s histrionics and my two-year-old’s requests for a hug are what’s in the room.

This isn’t easy practice. Especially for someone like me that always wants to be working toward the goal. Growing, improving, excelling, inspiring, creating. And at any point in time something somewhere on Instagram needs my double tap.

But progress is, by its very nature, progressive. So start with what’s right in front of you.

To my students I say, don’t worry about the final. Start with the current assignment. Enjoy it. Work hard on it. Excel at it. That’s going to be the very thing that earns you the grade you want in the end. And the building block of a graduate experience you want. Which is the experience you'll need to achieve those big, anxiety-inducing goals.

To the university, I said I would be able to deliver on their big goal, but only if I started small. And that meant just six people in a room.

Big goals start with small plans.

To those who feel intense desire to change the direction of our country, to create a movement, to empower the voiceless, to make a lasting positive impact in the world—keep that goal squarely in your mind.

Make your goal as big as you can imagine it. But start by grasping at those things within your reach.

Start with the people in the room. Focus there. And like a rock diving deep into the water, ripples will infinitely extend from the impact.

So impact those in the room. Whether it’s a classroom packed with bright, young minds; a meeting room full of colleagues; an office with one student needing help; or a living room alive with chatter, take care of the people in the room.

And, perhaps most importantly, don’t forget to take note of the times you walk in a room and find yourself completely alone.

Then take care.